A New Kind of Warfare
by ArizonaRanger057
Summary: "He's the best we've got, brutal in a fight and the poster boy of XCOM, sure when he first showed up he didn't know up from down, but he learned quickly, and that's just what XCOM needs to defeat the aliens. He's a great man and an even better soldier, I'm proud to call him a friend." -Colonel Peter Van Doorn, On Gunnery Sergeant Jaune Arc
1. Chapter 1

A New Kind of Warfare

Chapter 1

Jaune awoke to a cool breeze blowing across his face, the smell of saltwater quickly clearing his foggy mind. His limbs and head felt like they were made of lead as he shifted back from unconsciousness.

He instantly regretted any attempt to sit up, as a searing pain pulsed from his side, his hand immediately moved to evaluate the damage. Jaune's hand came back slick with blood, far more than he was comfortable with in fact.

As if from memory, Jaune closed his eyes and focused on his side until a warm tingling sensation washed over him, a dull golden glow enveloping his body.

Jaune continued focusing on his wound for a few minutes, his current situation caused his mind to spin as questions started to surface one by one. Where was he? How did he get here? Who or what gave him that injury? He didn't have much time to think about them all before a guttural groan tore Jaune from his inner musings.

Until now Jaune's eyes had been entirely focused on his wound and questions, somehow neglecting to notice precisely where it was he had awoken.

His eyes darted around his surroundings as he tried to get his bearing, what looked to be fish market stalls surrounded him, their signs written in a strange unreadable language Jaune had never seen before.

However, it wasn't the signs that were alarming, those were pretty low on his list, It was in instead the man slowly shuffling towards him, his skin a sickly green, and his chest ripped open for all the world to see.

Jaune's eyes widened in horror as he began kicking away from the creature with all of his might, He only made it a few feet before his back made contact with one of the many market stalls surrounding him.

The man, if he could even still be called a man, continued shuffling towards Jaune, eyes rolled into the back of his head and face fixed with an expression of absolute unbridled terror.

Dread shot up Jaune's spine as he reached for the only thing he knew could save him, only for his fear to grow when his fingers failed to fall into the natural grip of Crocea Mors.

Jaune's eyes bolted to where he had originally regained consciousness, the sword lay abandoned, tripping the shuffling man with a slight clink as he proceeded to shuffle towards Jaune.

With no other alternatives and the man nearly upon him, Jaune drew the scabbard hanging from his belt and mecha shifted it, the shield coming up just in time for the sickly green man to stumble into it rather than himself.

Limbs flailed and crashed into Jaune's defense, unable to gain the momentum needed to cause any serious damage, however, they were still withering down his defenses, his limbs trembling with exhaustion.

The man's face was gradually getting closer to Jaune's, The stench of blood and gore was overpowering as yet another guttural groan excited a thick string of black ichor too trickle from the man's gaping maw onto Jaune's disgusted and shocked face.

With his features locked into a snarl, Jaune drew every remaining ounce of force into shoving the monster onto the ground, while partially successful, he was also successful in receiving a new wound to the side of his head.

Jaune cried in fear as he slammed his shield into the man's head again and again. Lifeblood streamed down his face with every thump of his racing heartbeat thanks to the wound.

Jaune didn't stop until the man's head resembled ground beef more than a head, the moment he had realized exactly what he had done, he doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach, flecks of blood coming out along with his half-digested dinner.

"What the fuck," He rasped, voice breaking and breath ragged, Slowly, and with every bit of his remaining conviction, Jaune hauled himself from the dirt, and onto shaking and unstable legs, staring at anything other than the remains crumpled at his feet.

An ominous orange glow compassed Jaune thanks to the number of small fires nearby. Every gasp for air made him retch, smoke burning his nostrils as he worked to gain some semblance of balance before even thinking about moving.

Jaune's eyes were instantly fixed to the skies the second he could make out engine noise from farther within the village.

Taking one more minute to steady himself, Jaune scooped up his sword, Jaune shuffled as quickly as his battered and bleeding frame would carry him. Five minutes of dodging more of those creatures, and he was nearly there, fighting could be heard from just around the corner, and the sounds of an engine were excruciatingly harsh, running on willpower alone, Jaune forced himself around the final corner.

Time slowed as a beam of bright red angry light lanced its way into Jaune's chest, searing pain blossomed through his body, his chest plate doing nothing but yielding under the furious power of the laser.

He cried out in agony as his body crumpled into the dirt. For a fleeting moment, Jaune felt calm, the dirt all of a sudden felt comfortable, and he found his eyelids drooping.

His vision was hazy as he tried his best to make out the forms that came to hover over him. He could barely feel a set of arms grip under his own as he was dragged someplace else, Jaune didn't know to where and he couldn't force himself to care, He just felt so exhausted, everything was blurred and he couldn't think straight, almost as if he were dreaming.

Jaune's eyes remained shut till he felt a light pinprick in his chest, his eyes sprang wide, lungs struggling to swallow in enough oxygen. Everything around him became remarkably in focus, all of the prior tiredness was startled from his body.

Looking down, Jaune was jarred to find a burly dark-skinned man, wearing what resembled a thick set of navy blue and silver combat armor, hunched over him, the unfamiliar grey rifle slung to his side emitted a low hum, it's barrel radiating an angry red glow.

Embezzled on the man's shoulder plate was a white square with a red cross in the middle, the word 'MEDIC' imprinted right below the emblem, While the emblem itself was foreign to Jaune, the words were familiar enough.

Jaune's eyes trailed down the man's arms to get a better look at what it was he was doing just in time to watch as the man drew a long thick syringe from his chest.

As soon as he was done Jaune started to feel sluggish again, darkness crawling into the edges of his vision as everything started to move in and out of focus again.

"Don't worry kid, you're in good hands." the man spoke with a small smile on his face and a heavy guilt hidden within his deep green eyes.

The last thing Jaune could make out before passing out was an unusual looking yellow emblem, with the phrase 'Vigilo Confido'.

Jaune's senses were instantly assaulted by a number of unusual sensations, he could hear the low hum of a generator, the obnoxious beep every second or so of a machine, and the stench of antiseptics gave him the impression that he must have been inside of some sort of hospital.

The moment he cracked open his eyes they were clamped shut again in hopes that they don't cause his already pounding migraine to get any worse. His limbs still felt remarkably heavy, the pain in his side and chest, however, were all but a dull ache.

Jaune lifted his head and glanced about the room, abide with great difficulty. It seemed to be a sparsely furnished infirmary, not unlike the ones he had found himself being admitted to at Beacon on a number of occasions. however what stood out to Jaune the most was the woman standing directly in front of him.

Her chocolate brown hair was tied in a tight bun, A white lab coat draped over her green sweater with the same emblem Jaune had seen on the man's shoulder before succumbing to unconsciousness.

Jaune didn't have much time to examine his surroundings before the woman in front of him noticed his movements, the large device in her arms moved to her breast as her eyes meet with her patients.

"Ah, you've finally regained consciousness!" she exclaimed in a strange accent, lips set in a thin line as she lectured matter-of-factly "You're a lucky young man, not many outlast a Cryssalid infestation as extensive as the one you did."

"Where am I?" Jaune asked with a dry and raspy voice, he tried to think back but couldn't remember everything clearly, as if he was trying to remember a dream he had just woken up from, his mind flashed with red hair, green eyes, and bronze armor, but he wasn't quite able to form any of his thoughts into a clear image, he knew something was there, it was just like his mind was trying to hide it from him.

"Where you are a member of the rescue team?" The doctor questioned, her tone surprisingly curious as she scribbled something down on her tablet "When contact was lost with your team we were sent in, no other survivors were recovered."

Jaune's face scrunched in confusion, "Rescue team?"

"Yes," the woman replied, her eyes studying me in great detail, "You are a member of the Canadian Rescue Team are you not?"

"No, maybe? I'm not sure I can't really remember anything before waking up in the village," Jaune said, his stomach churned with confusion, the more he tried to focus on what remained in his mind, the quicker it began to fade away, tucked deeper into the recesses of his mind.

"Hmm, Perhaps you were a member of the CRT, but that doesn't explain your clothing, and archaic equipment." the woman stated, moving to the side of Jaune's bed, he could see the curiosity in her eyes, but also the caution. Without the end of the bed to impede his vision Jaune could see a strange blocky pistol strapped to the doctor's waistband, it hummed with power and emitted a red glow just like the rifle he had seen before had.

Jaune opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by the door to the room opening, a tall strong looking man sauntered into the room, his hair was trimmed short, an earpiece rested on his right ear, a similar sweater to the doctor of the same color.

"I'd like a word with our new guest Valhen," The man said, his voice commanding respect, the man reminded Jaune of someone, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Right away Bradford, I'll be in the lab." The doctor, now identified as Vahlen responded, a small tinge of disappointment in her voice as she left the room. leaving only Jaune and Bradford in the relatively small infirmary.

Jaune gulped as the man's hard eyes looked him up and down before finally staring him in the eyes, his face portrayed no emotion and did nothing to ease Jaune's worry, "What's your name?"

"Uh, It's Jaune, sir," Jaune state, grateful that he could at least remember his own name, or at least he thought that was his name, "Jaune Arc"

"And do you have any idea where you are Mr. Arc?" Bradford asked his face still a stony visage of military professionalism, Jaune swore he could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

"No sir," Jaune responded softly, his fingers twitching with equal parts nervous energy and curiosity, "Where am I exactly?"

"You're in the heart of XCOM's operations," Bradford said with a smile, puffing his chest in pride, "Welcome to the Anthill Mr. Arc."

A/N

Hey all, that's right I'm back after an almost two-year hiatus.

My only excuse for not updating is that I'm a lazy piece of shit who just wanted to look at anime titties instead.

Well anyways, I read 'XCOM: RWBY Within' and 'Remnant Unknown' by DrAmishMD (I highly recommend his work, It's gutwrenchingly good) and felt the sudden inspiration to write my own XCOM and RWBY crossover with my own twists and turns, so here we are.

This story should be a little more structured than my previous ones, better writing, and a set posting schedule, (weekly updates)

I know my writing isn't the best, so if anyone is interested in Beta Reading my chapters feel free to PM me.

I hope you all enjoyed the read, and I hope to see you in the next chapter! :)


	2. Chapter 2

A New Kind of Warfare

-I don't own XCOM or RWBY-

Chapter 2

Pyrrha swiftly navigated the corridors of the beacon with the purpose of meeting with team RWBY in their dorm, her eyes set forward and her mouth set in a thin line of worry.

Jaune hadn't shown up for any of his classes or their training sessions for almost three days. She knew Jaune could be pretty forgetful at times, but this was beginning to be more than just an 'Oh sorry Pyr, I forgot about that!'

Weiss exited the RWBY dorm the moment Pyrrha came upon it, a frown deeply set on her lips as she huffed in annoyance before leaving in the direction of the library.

Pyrrha passed by the annoyed Weiss into the dorm, she could distinctly see the concern on most everyone's face. While the only people to actually speak to Jaune had been herself, Ren, and Ruby, it was still quite obvious that the others were worried about his sudden disappearance.

After all, who just stops going to the most prestigious huntsman academy in the world?

Sure, she had heard of people dropping out of Beacon, but it had only happened to people who had either fallen in battle or been the only one to survive it.

Which was exactly why the whole situation was so upsetting to her, Jaune wanted to help people, to be a huntsman and nothing else, he told her it was a dream come true himself.

"So where'd Vomitboy run off to Pyr?" Yang spoke, her lilac orbs glued to Pyrrha as she paced back in forth within the small confines of the room.

"That's what we're here to find out Yang!" Ruby stated exasperatedly to the blond woman.

"The last time I saw him, he was going back too our dorm after our sparing session on the roof," Pyrrha spoke, her eyes moving over everyone in the room, measuring their reactions. "I didn't see him in the dorm after that, I thought he might be cramming for the test in Ports class."

"Ooohh, Pyr and Vometboy are having some fun aren't they!" Yang teased, patting the redhead on the shoulder with a hearty laugh.

"It's not like that Yang!" Pyrrha's face was about as red as her hair, eyes wide as if begging Yang to not go any further before explaining. "He asked me to help train him."

The light splash of pink on Ruby's cheeks was not lost on the redheaded spartan.

"Well whatever you were doing doesn't really matter to me, we just need to find him," Yang spoke, her face morphing into a visage of seriousness, 'At least she's keeping to the task at hand.' Pyrrha thought.

Blake was surprisingly the next person to speak, her eyes peeking over the edge of her book, and staring straight into Pyrrha's. "I saw him on his way to the locker rooms on my way back from the library,"

"I'll go and check the locker room, maybe there's a clue there." Ren said, standing up and walking out of the room, Nora trailing not far behind him with a multitude of 'Whoops!'.

With the rest of her team investigating a lead on Jaune, Pyrrha asked a question that had been bothering her from the instant she got to RWBY's dorm.

"Why did Weiss leave?"

"She thinks we should stop looking for Jaune," Ruby said with an expression full of disappointment, the words would have shocked Pyrrha had she not been there to console Jaune every time the Shnee had rejected his attempts at wooing her, but that didn't explain why she was so annoyed that they were all looking for him, they were his friends after all.

It just made no sense to her.

A knock at the door broke Pyrrha from her thoughts as she moved to open the door, only to find the tall and intimidating figure of the Headmistress of Beacon Academy, Glynda Goodwitch.

"What's this I hear about a missing student?"

-=-=-=Line Break =-=-=-

"What the heck is ex-com?" Jaune asked, brow furrowed and confusion evident on his face.

Bradford moved from the end of the bed to where Vahlen had been standing before he had relived her, "We're an international organization dedicated to defending against any and all extraterrestrial threats." he said matter of factly.

"Like aliens?"

"Yes"

He couldn't help but let out a long and hearty laugh. Sure Jaune loved to read an alien invasion comic every now and then, but he was nowhere near naive enough to believe they were real.

"You think I'm joking?" Bradford said, his lips set in a thin line as he inspected the young Arc's reaction

Jaune stared at him for a moment before answering, assembling his thoughts and attempting to make sense of the serious demeanor of the man in front of him before responding, "Well yea, I mean alien invasions are just in the movies and stuff."

Bradford gawked at him for a moment, his professional demeanor not shifting as he brought his hand up to his earpiece and spoke. "Get me a wheelchair for our guest, I want to introduce him to the other 'guest'."

Not five minutes later Jaune was being wheeled into the relatively busy hallway. Men and women in a mixture of lab coats and scrubs moving too and fro, some carrying tools and others tending to a patient here and there. If Jaune hadn't been told he was in a secret base to house soldiers trained to kill aliens he would have mistaken it for a normal hospital, minus the windows.

After moving through the corridors, Bradford wheeled Jaune to another door, two men in navy blue combat armor stood on either side of the entrance, handguns strapped to their waists. Not a moment after they both approached both of the men snapped to attention, Bradford dismissing them with a lazy salute.

The door opened and Jaune's eyes went wide, there, in the middle of the room, was a large glass room, reaching from floor to ceiling, a number of computers surrounding it with readouts and diagrams that made no sense to him. However it wasn't the cylinder, nor was it the computers themselves that shocked him, it was the creature on the other side of the glass that did.

Valhen stood in front of the glass structure, the same handheld device in her arms as she scrutinized the grey alien before turning to the two new additions to the room and spoke, "Welcome to our state of the art alien containment facility Central Officer, Mr. Arc."

"How is the interrogation going Doctor?" Bradford questioned, pushing Jaune closer to the thick glass and alloy barriers that kept the small alien prisoner, he couldn't help but stare at it, everything around him became impossible to focus on because right there in front of him, was an honest to goodness alien. it was lacking a mouth, and its chest and eyes emanated a warm orange glow,

The Central Officer broke off his conversation with Valhen before addressing Jaune with a smirk, "Change your mind, Mr. Arc?"

Jaune opened his mouth to speak but found no words came out, he repeated the process several times before shutting his mouth and nodding, helpless to move his eyes from the little alien staring right back at him through the glass, its eyes glued on Jaune as if it was as shocked as he was

"Good, Doctor Valhen, alert me if anything changes, I'll in the command center with our guest," Bradford said patting Jaune's back before returning to the many long and empty corridors for the base. Silence prevailed again as they departed towards the 'Control Room'.

Jaune's mind was reeling, how was it possible, aliens weren't real, but the little grey man he had just seen would disagree. only one thought was consistent within his mind, and it wasn't a thought that came to him often.

'What the fuck'

He didn't have much time to ask Bradford any questions before he was wheeled into yet another large room, this one being at least two stories tall, the size clearly needed to accommodate the ginormous blue globe being projected in the center of the room.

Someone yelled "Officer on Deck," the moment the duo entered the spacious room, everyone standing at attention before Bradford dismissed them with a wave of his hand, all of them sitting back down at their consols and returning to whatever work they had been assigned.

"This is the Geoglobe, any and all operations are routed through this room, and overseen by me and my officers," Bradford explained, pushing Jaune closer to the colossal blue sphere in the center of the chamber before pointing to a large continent in the northern hemisphere labeled 'Canada' "We found you in a small coastal fishing village here, one of our operatives mistook you for a Chryssalid Zombie and fired, thankfully that armor of yours dissipated enough energy to weaken the laser and only gave you third degree burns insted of penetrating your heart."

Jaune gawked at Bradford for a moment working to process everything the Central Officer had said, Zombie, Canada, laser, what the heck was he talking about?

"I'm sorry I don't understand," the blond knight said, uncertainty unmistakable on his face before continuing, "Where the heck am I exactly?"

Bradford stared at Jaune, the man's face back to its default military professionalism, before pulling him from the Command Center, not saying a word until they were back in the hallway, "We should talk in my office."

Bradford remained silent until they had entered a small spartan room with a large wooden desk, a banner on the wall behind it adorning the unfamiliar emblem Jaune had seen everyone wearing with pride.

Sitting down at the large desk, The Central Officer clasped his hands together and stared at Jaune for some time before eventually speaking again, "Do you know why you're here?"

"Because I was injured?"

"You think I'd just let some random civilian into the heart of XCOM operations? Because he was injured? Hell no, I kept you here because your entire body lit up like a Christmas tree the moment the hospital we dropped you off at tried to operate on you." Bradford said with a faux tone of offense before chuckling. "We thought you might be some new type of abductee."

Bradford let his words sink into Jaune before speaking again, his face going dark. "Do you know how many people have been killed by the aliens so far Jaune?" Bradford stood up from his seat silently and moved to look at an antique painting of a lush green countryside, "Hundreds of thousands of people are dead Jaune, and those they don't kill are melted down for god knows what." Bradford looked away from the canvas and stared directly into Jaune's eyes.

"Every alien we kill, five more take their place, every UFO we shoot down, ten more appear." The Central Officers asserted, eyes burning with resolve and barely suppressed anger.

His speech stirred something deep within Jaune, he felt anger, sadness, and most of all, he felt his own resolve grow within himself, Resolve to help people, to save people, and to stop the slaughter.

"How can I help?" Jaune demanded, his resolve building by the second.

"We only recruit the best of the best from all of Earth's militaries," Bradford spoke before giving Jaune a melancholic smirk, "but I'm sure Colonal Van Dorn would relish the chance to whip you into shape."

The Central Officer held he hand to Jaune before uttering a sentence that would change Jaune's life forever. "Welcome to XCOM Private."

A/N

Yup, so that's a thing.

Jaune will indeed be a member of XCOM, and it seems he's missing a few important things in that head of his, but don't worry, they'll come back one way or another.

Also, to clarify, I'll be treating Bradford and his NCO's and Officers as the 'Commander' of XCOM, because It doesn't really make sense to have one guy choosing exactly where and what everyone does at any given time, give the guys some freedom for god sakes.

Anyways, I hope you guys and gals enjoy the chapter, remember to leave a review, I value all of your opinions, and you're guaranteed to hear back from me within about 24 hours. :)


	3. Chapter 3

A New Kind of Warfare

I do not own XCOM or RWBY

Chapter 3

Jaune impacted the floor of XCOM's training center hard, his body ached and bruised, cracking his eyes with a groan, Jaune stared up at the figure standing above him.

Colonel Peter Van Doorn. Jaune's trainer and instructor for his first couple of months, his job was to show Jaune the ropes of XCOM, as well as tell him everything he was required to know in order to not get swindled by the other more seasoned troops.

"I think that's good enough for today specialist" Van Doorn declared with a proud and triumphant grin on his face. "You're getting better Jaune, we'll do some weapons training "

Jaune's eyes lit up at the mention of weapons training, when he had originally joined, he and Bradford had to go through a large stack of paperwork to put him into the system, Take a test to find out what combat job fit him best, take a physical and mental exam, and give him citizenship in a country called the United States of America, presumably where the large bunker complex commissioned for XCOM's use had been built.

It had been a long and stressful night, the pot of coffee never more than half empty, by the time they had finished filling everything out it was 4:27 AM.

That was roughly a month ago, Jaune had mostly recuperated from his injuries, the only things left to show they happened in the first place being a large nasty scare on his side, and three long lateral scars running on the right side of Jaune's head right above his ear.

He had originally been pretty disconcerted about them, that is until Van Doorn told him that chicks dig scars and uniforms, so he was a quote 'catch to any girl that set her eyes on him', somehow that made Jaune feel better about having his head sliced open by a Zombie.

Both Jaune and Van Doorn began gathering their meager belongings from the training center platform and departed to the locker room to stow it away.

"How are you fitting in Jaune," Van Doorn asked with a smile before he nudged Jaune with his elbow and continued, "Nobody tried to get you to scrub the barracks with your toothbrush yet have they?"

"No, sir. I've found some friends in engineering and some of the guys from Alpha company play cards and stuff with me." Jaune answered professionally, he had quickly adopted the heavily regimented military lifestyle in light of his missing memory, as far as command was concerned, he was a model soldier with a knack for leadership on the fast track to promotion.

"Good to hear," The general said with a trace of skepticism in his voice, while Van Door was an exceptional tactician and soldier, he wasn't all that great at hiding how he felt, Weather it's good or bad, he let the whole world see.

"Something wrong, Sir?" Jaune asked tensely, he knew something was up, even if he was socially inept himself, it didn't stop him from seeing the blatantly obvious difference in Van Doorn's mood.

"Ah- I was trying to keep this on the down low, but you're set to join up with Alpha company as soon as you complete weapons training," Van Doorn said, his voice a mixture of proudness and disappointment, he and Jaune had become quite close during their time together, Van Doorn was almost like a fatherly figure to Jaune as he made his transition from civilian teenager to well-trained machine gunner, providing him advice when he needed and forging a kinship that would last for years to come.

"So I'll be under Colonel Durand?" Jaune asked tentatively, while he was still extremely new to the XCOM project, he had heard a few stories about the CO of A company, her origins are a mystery to all but the upper echelons of command, and for good reason apparently, the only thing Jaune knew, was that she had been abducted by the aliens, and then kidnapped by EXALT. If that didn't say anything about her importance than he had no idea what would.

"Yep, Alpha squad to be exact, you'll be directly under the command of Durand herself," Van Doorn said with a smirk, "She asked for you personally."

"She did?" Jaune asked, his muscles tense and eyes wide, why in the world had the famed Colonel personally ask for a rookie of all people to join Alpha squad?

"Yup, no idea why exactly but I have complete faith that you'll blow their expectations out of the water," The Colonel said, Jaune could tell that Van Doorn wasn't telling him the whole truth, but decided that if the Colonel was withholding something from him, it was probably for good reason.

"Now, I've got an NCO conference to get too, you get yourself some chow and some sleep," Van Doorn said with a stiff laugh before attempting to ease the tense atmosphere in the room, "I heard Shen finished up those plasma weapons he's been tinkering with for so long"

"Hell yea, sir," Jaune said, the tenseness in the air evaporating as Van Doorn exited the locker room, leaving the Specialist to his own devices.

It didn't take long for Jaune to finished stowing his gear, he paused to check the clock that sat above the locker room door and found he had just enough time left to take a quick shower and still have time to grab some food before they closed up for the night.

Jaune entered the showers to find three other people already there, two guys and one girl, all of them from Alpha company.

Jaune's eyes trailed down the woman's form for a moment, her golden yellow hair accenting her lightly tanned skin and bright green eyes, Jaune blinked a couple of times and stopped himself from looking too low before moving to a faucet a good distance away from everyone and turning it on, the cold water doing wonders at hiding his now scarlet face.

The woman he had just so rudely been staring at was Specialist Sasha Morozov, a 22-year-old member of the very same company he was slated to join. She also happened to be the girl he might have a slight, small little crush on, for reasons that eluded even himself.

Jaune didn't know if joining the same company as her was a blessing in disguise, or a failure waiting to happen, while XCOM training had done wonders to improve his confidence, he still couldn't help but feel he was sub-par in comparison to his colleges, and he wasn't the only one too think that.

A number of operatives made sure to voice their opinion's on Jaune's sudden recruitment as loudly as possible, they viewed his easy recruitment as an abhorrent ignorance of protocol, after all, they put their blood sweat and tears to get where they were, and some teenager gets shot and is recruited on the spot? they hated it, and they hated him.

One of those operatives just so happened to be Sasha.

Jaune was interrupted from his inner musings by a bar of soap impacting with his head, causing him to jump and knock him off balance, his behind impacting with the tile floor of the showers painfully.

Jaune looked up to find Sasha and one of the other two males from Charlie by the lockers, their clothes on, and their gear stowed properly, Jaune stole a glance at the clock to see he had only seven minutes to get dressed and grab some food before the chow hall closed.

"What's wrong kiddo, gonna miss dinner? Maybe a few missed meals will get you to quit." Sasha taunted with a laugh, her voice full of malice and annoyance before leaving the room too god knows where.

Jaune sighed, picked himself up off the floor, and turned off the water. placing a towel over himself, Jaune moved to the locker section of the room and began drying himself off properly. He was shocked to find one of the two guys from before sitting on one of the benches across from his locker and was even more shocked to hear the man speak to him.

"Hey man, I'm sorry about them, I know their assholes now but they'll come around after you run a couple of missions with 'em," The man said to Jaune's surprise, sure, not every operative he didn't know was an asshole, but it was a surprise none the less.

"It's alright, I've become pretty used to it after a month," Jaune replied with a meager smile as he put on his casual wear.*

"Ehh, still, we're all here to fight aliens not each other, so I'm sorry about their dickish behavior," The man said with a smile and a pat on Jaune's shoulder.

"Oh, I almost forgot, I'm Nick, Nice guy extraordinaire and sniper for Alpha company, Echo Squad!" The man now identified as Nick stated proudly with a slight flourish.

Now completely dressed, Jaune took a moment to inspect Nick, his hair was dark brown and cut about an inch from his scalp, his eyes were a light hazel brown and his physique spoke of someone with years of experience in warfare.

"Nice to meet you, Nick, I'm Jaune, If you don't mind I'm gonna try and get some food before they-" Jaune said before being interrupted by a shrill beeping being broadcast over the intercom, the same sound that was played three times a day the moment the Chow Hall closed.

"Close? Don't worry man, I can get you some food ten times better than anything they serve here" Nick said with a mischievous smile and a nudge, causing Jaune to stare at him with a curious look.

"Really? You don't mind?" Jaune asked uncertainly, he wasn't exactly sure where this kindness had come from, but his growling stomach wasn't about to let him turn down the promise of sustenance.

"Yea man, I know a guy in Engineering, has a guilty pleasure for Microwave meals, pays a guy on the outside to ship a crate to him every month labeled as 'Depleted Uranium' to keep it secret," Nick said with a laugh, leading Jaune out of the locker room and down a number of hallways and corridors he had never seen before.

The both of them stopped at a door at the end of a dead end hall labeled 'Janitorial Staff Only' Nick nodded towards the door with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin on his face. Jaune took that as his sign to open the door.

The moment he had, Jaune's eyes were met with those of the good Doctor Shen, the elderly Asian man sitting at a collapsible table, in a lightly furnished room illuminated by a single bare light bulb.

Nick slid by Jaune and entered the room with a jovial laugh, "Hey there Doc, my buddy Jaune here missed out on chow, got any meals left?"

"Nick, You scared the daylights out of me, of course, I have a couple of extra meal left, you're welcome to join me if you can keep it on the down low." Shen stated with a sigh, bringing a fork full of peas to his mouth "The last thing I need is Bradford finding out about this."

"Thanks Doc, Alright Jaunster, what do you want, Salisbury Steak or Turkey? Ahh, Maybe you're a Wheeles and Cheese kinda guy?" Nick questioned, holding three boxes in his hands and looking expectedly at Jaune with a grin.

"Surprise me," Jaune replied with a laugh, before pulling up a chair across from the Director of engineering who slid a plastic fork to him.

"So Jaune, How's XCOM life treating you?" Shen asked, an almost grandfatherly smile on his face as he slid a glass of purple fizzy liquid over too him.

"It's been alright, all things considered, I've got some friends, and my training is going well so far," Jaune responded with a slight smile. It wasn't a lie per say, but he was happy with his life, and the opportunities he had been given, he knew it wasn't going to be easy from the beginning.

"Good, I'm sure you won't have any issues with anyone after a mission or two, have a nice evening Specialist," Shen said cryptically, a small smile on his face as he finished the rest of his food, and left the room without another word, leaving the two grunts to eat the smuggled food.

The both of them finished their food in record time, talking and laughing about anything from comics to video games until it was almost lights out, they exited the small room silently and weaved through the facility until they were both departed to their designated Dorms

Somehow, Jaune felt like life was starting to look up for him.

* - Imagin the XCOM: Enemy Within Covert Operative outfit.


	4. Chapter 4

A New Type of Warfare

Chapter 4

"I'd like you to participate in XCOM's newly established Gene warfare division." Dr. Valhen declared proudly.

"Gene warfare?" Jaune questioned with an expression of uncertainty, "I've never heard of it."

"That's because it's not common knowledge," Valhen responded smoothly.

"Then why did you tell me, it's not like I'm the best candidate for something like this," Jaune questioned.

"On the contrary Specialist Arc, your genetic structure holds the most variation out of everyone else in your training class, therefore, that makes you are the most obvious choice for this program." The woman stated, much too Jaune's shock.

"And if I was interested, how exactly does it work?" The blond asked curiously.

"Meld Specialist Arc, Meld," Dr. Valhen stated matter of factly, "Nanomachines made up of organic and mechanical components, capable of altering an individuals tissue and incorporating aspects of the aliens' own genetic adaptations,"

"Can I get that in English please?" Jaune asked, his confused expression persisting despite the extremely, for lack of a better word, scientific, explanation.

"They modify a variety of human anatomical systems, allowing numerous tactical advantages for use in the field," Valhen responded naturally.

Jaune responded with a simple nod, while he didn't 100% understand the explanation, he at least got the gist of it, 'Tiny robots that give you alien powers.'

"While this operation is optional, we don't offer it to just anyone, only those who score within the top five percent of their training classes are offered this opportunity," Valhen asserted a matter of factly.

Jaune stood silently in consideration, when Valhen had summoned him to her office he hadn't in a million years anticipated she would offer him superhuman abilities.

"The operation is completely safe, and while there will be some rather distinct physiological differences between yourself and a conventional operative, you will still be you on a cellular level," Valhen spoke reassuringly, or whatever passed for reassuring to the Chief Science Officer.

Jaune's mind lingered for several moments, contemplating his alternatives, and challenging whether alien powers were really worth pumping himself full of nanomachines or not.

A flashback to his discussion with Bradford that lead to his recruitment into XCOM made up Jaune's mind for him.

"I'll do it."

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Jaune coughed and gasped for breath as the liquid inside his tank was expelled. Before he knew it, the tank was raised over his head, and he was left with four tubes attached directly to the cybernetic implants on his biceps, shoulder blades and various other places on his body as he struggled to take in oxygen into his lungs.

A number of medical technicians were encircling him within a moment, disconnecting each individual tube from his newly augmented body with a hiss, leaving Jaune too collect himself as best he could.

Jaune's mind began too pulsed with pain as he collapsed to the floor, supported only by the medical techs around him, he could faintly feel himself being lifted up and laid down somewhere before he inevitably lost consciousness.

Images, faces, and smiles began to flash through his mind at the speed of light, flashes of red hair, green eyes, and a wide smile, of a silver-eyed innocence, a strange pairing of pink and green.

The images flashed away as fast as they came, but they left something behind, remnants of past feelings, of joy, camaraderie, and one that stood out more than any other, one that felt almost foreign to him.

A feeling of love.

Jaune's eyes bolted open and gasped for breath before taking a second to compose himself, the first thing he noticed was that he had been moved into the medical cot he found himself in on so many other occasions in the past

Jaune's mind struggled to grasp exactly what had gone on within the past twenty-four hours, minute he was drinking with Van Doorn to celebrate his graduation from cadet too fully fledged XCOM operative, then he was offered a transfer into a 'Gene Warfare Division', to getting cybernetic implants surgically shoved into his body, to now, laying in a hospital bed with a splitting headache.

"What a day," Jaune Whispered too himself tiredly, the familiar hiss of a hydraulic door opening broke him from his thoughts.

Jaune was shocked to find the last person he expected to visit him, her lips set in a thin line with a glimmer of proudness in her eyes.

Colonel Annette Durand, his new squad leader and Commanding Officer of Alpha Company.

The recent appearance of his new CO caused Jaune too bolt up from his medical bed, abide with some difficulty, and snap to attention, causing Durand too look him up and down and chuckle to herself.

"At ease Specialist, and put this on, we have a lot of work to do," Durand said in a heavy French accent, punctuating her words by throwing Jaune the small uniform bag she had been holding.

The woman's words confused Jaune greatly, that is until he looked down at himself to find himself standing at attention butt naked.

Jaune blushed heavily and murmured a quick apology before dressing in the uniform provided to him, which he was surprised to find was exactly the same design as his uniform before, the only difference being a new emblem having been added to the uniforms right shoulder.

He could see it was a variation of the XCOM emblem he had seen everywhere throughout his training, however, the differences were obvious, the entire emblem was now orange in color, it had only one star in the center, and the globe and 'X' he had become so accustomed to seeing had been replaced with a single arch. The motto 'Vigilo Confido' being changed too 'Mutare ad Custodiam'.

Jaune ran his thumb over the new motto wordlessly, he had no idea what it meant, but it had to be in the same language as the original motto.

"What does it mean?" Jaune asked.

"It means 'Change to Protect'," Durand stated proudly.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Remnant POV

"The Headmaster has asked to see you," Glynda asked curtly, her face stern as ever and her riding crop laying across her crossed arms.

"He has?" Pyrrha asked, her voice as tense as her shoulders.

"Yes, Let's not leave the Headmaster to wait." The blond witch stated, as she turned around and started moving down the hallway, Pyrrha following close behind her with a 'Yes, Ma'am"

The two of them walked through Beacon's grounds without a word until they came to a large ornate elevator door, the sigil of Beacon embezzled into it, giving it a large and imposing stature to anyone approaching.

"The Headmaster is waiting for you, I'll be here when you are finished," Glynda stated simply before opening the elevator door and motioning the red-headed spartan in before it closed and began it's ascent to the top of Beacon tower.

Pyrrha took her moment of solitude to collect her thoughts, Jaune was missing without a trace, and she was the only person who knew about his forged transcripts. The redhead paused as a possibility came to mind.

'What if Ozpin found out about Jaune's forged transcripts and kicked him out?'

Pyrrha started to panic, how could he have found out so fast? It couldn't have been that obvious, could it? Otherwise, how had he gotten in the first place?

her inner thoughts were interrupted by a light 'ding', She had reached the top.

"Ah, Miss. Nikos, I'm glad you could make it in such a timely manner." The esteemed Headmaster stated kindly, a small polite smile on his face as he motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk "Please, take a seat."

"Of course Headmaster," Pyrrha stated curtly, before sitting down in front of the sagely headmaster, adopting her interview pose as she straightened her back, crossed legs, and clasp her hands together in front of her.

"I presume you've made your assumptions about why I've called you up here so suddenly?" The Headmaster said curtly before taking a sip from his ever-present mug.

"Yes, Headmaster," Pyrrha stated quickly, her shoulders stiff as her mind raced a mile a minute.

"Then you know of the transcripts?" The sagely man declared, "And of their, Less than truthful nature?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"Good, let's keep that information between the two of us, Not even Glynda knows about them." The Headmaster stated with a small chuckle.

"How doesn't she know? Doesn't she handle all of the transcript information?" Pyrrha asked with a confused look on her face.

"While she does handle most student recruitment, I tend to handle those I see the most potential in." The Wizardly man stated with a small smile as he opened a drawer in his desk and deposited what looked like a napkin with some words scribbled on it.

Ozpin passed it to Pyrrha and watched as her eyes widened as they passed over the simple message.

"How is this possible?" The spartan stated in disbelief, her mind racing as she tried her best to regain her composure to no avail.

"Why it's quite simple Miss. Nikos," Ozpin stated with a small smile, "I saw potential."

Pyrrha gawked at the Headmaster for a moment as all of the pieces started to fall into place, Jaune hadn't snuck into Beacon, the back door was left open for him.

A/N

I do apologize that this chapter is both two days late, and shorter than normal, I had a bit of trouble with writing this chapter as my mind was a little busy trying to comprehend the fallout 76 reveal.

Anyhow, I hope ya'll enjoyed the chapter, please leave reviews, I live off them and they motivate me to write chapters faster.


	5. Chapter 5

A New Type of Warfare

Chapter 5

Pyrrha knew her partner better than anyone, barring her parents he was one of the few people in Remnant to bear witness to the real Pyrrha, not the four-time Mistral Tournament champion, not the invincible girl, just Pyrrha, And she was more than okay with that.

She was thrilled to use her time studying, sparing, and relishing life at Beacon with her team, but recent circumstances had forced Pyrrha to face the possibility that Jaune had quit, the possibility that he had run from his team and would never look back.

Pyrrha's stomach twisted into knots before she shook her head and got up from her bed, it had been another week since Jaune had disappeared, everyone still searching for the blond knight were working on fumes, if you looked hard enough, you could see the hope slowly fading from their eyes, it didn't help that Weiss was less than helpful, always spouting about how Beacon was a better place without the 'Blond Dunce'.

It made Pyrrha's blood boil, but she repressed it, there was little else she could do other than take her anger out during combat class, too which she actively sought to be paired with Weiss as regularly as possible.

She knew that Jaune wouldn't have wanted her to think so badly of their cold 'friend', but she just couldn't help it, Weiss' own partner, Ruby, was about as distraught at Jaune's disappearance as Pyrrha was, and the resident Ice Queen just keep babbling on and on about how everyone was better off without him.

The familiar ringtone of her scroll shook her from her inner reflections, she grabbed it from her nightstand in a flash, every time wishing it was him, but it never was.

It was Ozpin.

Pyrrha stared at the photo of the Headmaster displayed on her Scroll for a moment, she considered just letting it ring before shaking her head and answering.

"Hello?" Pyrrha spoke quickly, her voice dull and full of sadness she had tried and failed to hide.

"I do believe we have found a clue regarding the disappearance of Mr. Arc, Miss. Nikos." The silver-haired headmaster declared simply.

A feeling of optimism built up in Pyrrha's chest as she did her best to hide the desperation in her hurried response, "What? Do you know where he is? Why he disappeared?"

"Slow down Miss. Nikos, we have not quite found Mr. Arc himself, rather an eyewitness account." The headmaster stated simply, before letting out a light sigh, "Although it's authenticity maybe, ah, less than truthful in your eyes."

"Less than truthful?" Pyrrha questioned in confusion

"Mr. Winchester came to my office not fifteen minutes ago, he was apprehensive, but he came to me with some, how should I say, fascinating information," Ozpin said with a punctuation of intrigue.

The mention of the mace-wielding tormentor produced a scowl on Pyrrah's face, she was willing to risk this being a ploy by Cardin if it also meant she would get some information on her missing partner.

"What did he say?" Pyrrha urged silently, doubt obvious in her voice.

"He said that he and his team just so happened to be with Jaune in the locker room at the time we believe he disappeared," The sagely headmaster said with a sigh, "And that they were quote, 'Horsing around' when an incident occurred between Mr. Arc and Mr. Winchester."

Pyrrha scoffed at the wording the headmaster used.

Ozpin coughed before he started speaking again, "Mr. Winchester stated that quote, 'One minute he was there, the next he wasn't' "

Pyrrha's brow scrunched in confusion, what was that supposed to mean? Was CRDL trying to tug at their heartstrings, possibly prod at a sensitive subject to try and get her and her team to lash out? It all made no sense to her.

"You can't possibly believe a word he's said can you?" The red-haired spartan said incredulously, "They've been harassing Jaune from day one!"

"I am not ignorant of your team's experiences with Team CRDL, However, I could tell Mr. Winchester was concerned about Jaune, now whether it be out of genuine care, or fear of reprimand, I can not say for sure, but I know that Mr. Winchester has not lied to me," Ozpin responded honestly, the river of information causing Pyrrha's brain to clog up working to process it.

"So you think he just disappeared into thin air? How do you explain that?" Pyrrha challenged, her voice bordering on an accusatory tone.

She took a deep breath and cursed herself for losing her composure, she seemed to be doing a lot of that as of late.

"Perhaps he did Miss. Nikos, this would not be the first incident of a student mysteriously vanishing on Beacon grounds." He stated simply, Pyrrha could hear the familiar sound of a mug being sipped from before he continued, "twenty-seven years ago, a student by the name of Liam Kahn disappeared from his dorm, there was no sound, no light, no trace."

Her eyes began to sting as she felt hot droplets glide down her face, Pyrrha took a long deep breath to steady herself, she couldn't afford to break down, she had to be strong, both for herself and for Jaune.

"So he's just gone? No chance of finding him?" Pyrrha muttered silently to herself.

"Now that's not the end of the story Miss. Nikos, While Mr. Kahn did disappear, it was not permanently, approximately a year later, he reappeared deep in the Grimm lands, the only reason we realized he was there was because of a high-frequency distress signal." Ozpin stated matter of factly, punctuation his statement with a sigh.

He'd decided it was for the best that he didn't tell her they hadn't made it to him before he expired.

"Then there's a chance he'll come back?" Pyrrha said hopefully, a desperation in her voice she didn't even bother trying to hide.

"Yes, Miss. Nikos," The headmaster affirmed.

Pyrrha was torn between throwing up, crying, and jumping for joy.

"Now I must let you go, I have several matters to attend too, Goodbye Miss. Nikos," the experienced headmaster said before hanging up his scroll, leaving Pyrrha to sort out the amalgamation of emotions coursing through her.

The red-haired woman gave a heavy sigh before collapsing into her bed, she just wanted Jaune to be back with the team.

Back with her.

Before she even realized it, Pyrrha's lids started to droop, the emotional rollercoaster of a Scroll call she had just been through having sapped her spirit like the sun on a scorching summer day.

With her final ounce of energy, Pyrrha seized one of her partner's various hoodies and buried her face in it, passing out nearly immediately at the familiar and soothing scent of her partner.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

-XCOM Base Codenamed 'Anthill' specialized training hall-

"Whenever you are ready Specialist Arc," Valhen declared, her eyes not leaving the tablet in her arms.

Jaune steeled himself and lowered himself into a crouch with a groan, ahead of him was a two-story barricade, so far he had thrown himself over it with exercised ease at least a couple dozen times, and every time he thought he was finally finished, the Chief Science Officer from hell would ask him to do it once more.

It was a constant cycle that made the blond Arc consider if the superhuman abilities were really worth all the testing Valhen had lined up for him.

Jaune groaned as he leaped over the barrier once again, landing on the other side with a muted thud.

"Alright Specialist Arc, I believe you have earned yourself a break," Valhen declared with a smirk, her gaze shifting between him and her tablet a number of times before she turned around and started chatting with a couple of engineers about something Jaune had no chance of understanding.

Taking his leave, Jaune left the training room, with no real objective in mind, he'd probably just wander to the rec room and people watch. As weird as it seemed Jaune found himself doing it more and more frequently, maybe he'd run to his barrack and grab one of those comics Nick lent to him?

While Jaune tried too choose exactly where he was going to go, he neglected to look where he was walking and crashed recklessly into someone he REALLY didn't want to deal with at the moment.

Jaune groaned to himself in frustration, it was Sasha.

"Well look at that, can't even walk without fucking it up can ya rook?" The blond-haired Russian woman asserted, looking him up and down.

Her eyes widened a little it after a moment, no doubt recognizing the new patches and rank on his uniform and the holes that left his cybernetic implants visible for all to see.

All the woman could muster what a muttered 'What the fuck' before she recomposed herself, no doubt annoyed at herself for losing her composure in front of the man she wanted to crush under her boot.

"I can't say I've seen that reaction yet," Jaune stated with a chuckle, his hand scratching the back of his head, a nervous tick he had been trying to stop to no avail.

"Why the fuck would they waste resources on a dumbass teen with no combat background?" Morozov whispered to herself, her brow scrunched in confusion, she either didn't hear Jaune speak or just didn't care.

Sasha's eyes whipped to Jaune's, her gaze glowed with suspicion, she wasn't sure what the higher-ups saw in this asshat, but she'd be damned if she didn't find out.

"Follow me ya fucken paperweight." She said instantly before she grasped Jaune by the shoulder and dragged him behind her.

"Where are we going?" Jaune asked tensely, mind reflecting back to literally every other interaction with Sasha, which regularly ended in physical harm coming to the blond knight.

"Wherever I say dumbass, I'm gonna find out why the fuck Central trusts you to be here." The Russian specialist declared with a scowl, she wasn't gonna be any rougher that she had been with him so far, she wanted information from him after all.

Jaune gulped, he had no chance of escaping the angry woman, he knew all he could honestly do was hunker down and hope all this crap blew over quick, preferably without adding any injuries to his already long list of them.

The blond knight wasn't very conscious of where the pissed off woman was dragging him, he was far more focused on the thumb she had jabbed beneath his collarbone.

It didn't take long before Jaune was pushed into a room full force, followed by Morozov, who much to the blond knight's concern, secured the door behind her.

Looking around the room, Jaune found that the blond specialist in front of him had shoved him in the most famous of interrogation chambers.

"Oooh, The janitors closet, how scary, what are you gonna do, mop me too death?" Jaune said, voice dripping with sarcasm, he couldn't help himself, she kinda walked herself into that one.

Sasha turned around with a blank look on her face, an almost unnervingly emotionless mask that cut deep into Jaune, silencing whatever other quips he may have had.

"Now listen here, and listen good, I don't like you," Sasha remarked, creeping closer and closer to Jaune in as threatening of a manner as possible, "But what I can't wrap my head around is the fact that Bradford somehow felt comfortable enough with some asshole untrained knight wannabe in the ranks of XCOM's best and brightest."

Jaune stared at Sasha for a moment, what she was asking did make sense, he had completely avoided any and all recruitment requirements, joined a combat unit at war with an alien coalition, and had pieces of his genetic composition tampered with when he hadn't even been in a proper firefight.

"I'm not sure," Jaune said simply, he wasn't lying, he truly had no idea why Bradford even expressed interest in him in the first place, he didn't feel all that important, so why was it that the Central Officer treated him like he was?

"BULLSHIT!" Mozorov shouted at Jaune, her hand shaking as it drew the combat knife she always kept concealed in her right boot, the silver blade reflecting the dull glow of the lights above them.

Jaune stared in muted fright at the woman, her knife raised over her head, poised and ready to stab him in the chest.

The blond knight did what any other highly qualified alien killer would do, he shrieked like a little girl and kicked the shit out of Specialist Mozorov.

However, unlike most other XCOM operatives, Jaune possessed a vertical jump height of two stories, which when paired with kicking someone full force in the chest, caused the murderous woman to be sent sailing into the wall opposite to him.

In a panic, Jaune rushed to her side, two fingers shooting immediately for her neck, the blond knight let out the breath of relief he didn't know he was holding the moment he felt a pulse.

Jaune looked at the Russian Specialist's face, she seemed so peaceful now that she wasn't trying to stab him in the gut. She looked almost like a typical woman in her twenties would.

The moment of peace didn't last as long as Jaune would have liked, Sasha's eyes bolted wide as she sped into action, striking Jaune across the face and sending him to the ground as she hoisted herself into a loose combat stance.

Jaune, nursing his now bruised cheek, and looked up at Sasha, right into her eyes, the bright green now swirling with a strange purple energy.

A/N

Ayyy, I got this chapter out on time, and it's slightly longer than normal, lucky you guys!

Remember that Reviews motivate me to write more stuff faster, so feed my ego you bastards.


	6. Chapter 6

A New Type of Warfare

Chapter 6

Jaune studied the woman in front of him, her normally precise and confident movement now gone, replaced by sluggish and uncoordinated movements usually reserved for new recruits, not a combat team veteran.

"Sasha?" The blond knight urged softly, his eyes wandering the room in search of anything he could use to level the playing field.

The Russian Specialist responded with a long guttural groan, her eyes now burning a bright purple. Jaune's mind began to fill with whispers, echoing through his thoughts, searching his mind for anything they could use against him.

Jaune had been through the mandatory Psionics classes, and while he wasn't the top of his class, he was more than competent enough to recognize a mind control attempt.

Sasha, who had until then been perfectly content standing there like a brick wall, jumped at him, her knife just barely being knocked off course from his face.

Sure he had experience resisting mind control in a training environment, but the fact that a knife was being jabbed at him every couple of seconds made it infinitely harder.

A glancing slice to Jaune's side shook him to the reality of the fight.

Sasha was trying to kill him, sure she wasn't exactly herself, but that didn't change that one wrong step by him would spell his immediate and probably painful death. Jaune's eyes hardened, his newly augmented eyes made it seem like time was slowing.

The mind-controlled woman moved to stab at Jaune's stomach.

Jaune dodged quickly, leaving the woman overextended and giving the blond knight just enough time to knock the knife from the woman's grasp with a well-placed kick.

Jaune was knocked to the ground by an impact he didn't see coming

His mind was reeling, trying to figure out which of the three purple eyed women was the one currently trying to bash his head in with a flurry of punches.

Fighting through his impact induced daze, Jaune lashed out with a number of fast and desperate punches, knocking the woman off of him, and giving him the moment of reprise he needed to get back to his feet and fight back the torrent of psionic energy trying to take control of him.

Jaune's mind was in chaos, images of memories lost flashed across his vision, the blond knight held his head as he yelled out in pain and collapsed back to his knees in pain, eyes held tightly together.

"You... You do not belong..." a chorus of disembodied voices reverberated from Sasha's mouth, her eyes dead and filled with bright purple energy, "But... You are not useless... We will find a... Use... For you,"

"What are you," Jaune angrily spoke through gritted teeth, he could no longer feel the psionic presents in his mind, but his brain still felt like someone was scooping chunks out with a melon baller.

"We... Are the rightful inheritors... Of the universe..." The voices declared calmly, prompting a shiver of fear to roll down Jaune's spine, "And you... You are a long... Long way from home..."

"What the fuck does that mean!" Jaune spat, his hands held tightly against his head, trying and failing to stem the agonizing pain growing in his head.

"We will be watching you... " The voices echoed at a whisper before disappearing entirely, causing Sasha to hit the ground like a sack of bricks.

Jaune, still recovering from his mental assault, cautiously approached the unconscious girl. Carefully, the blond knight slid one of her eyelids open to reveal a perfectly normal bright green eye, a little bloodshot, but normal.

The blond Arc let out a long sigh of relief, sure she was a total asshole to him, but as far as he was concerned they were on the same team.

It took Jaune a couple of minutes to gain his composure again and to make sure Sasha wasn't mortally injured.

After double checking the both of their wounds and gaining a bit more of his balance, the blond Arc pulled Sasha into a bridal carry to try and decrease his odds of worsening any internal injuries she might have.

Because if he could feel at least one cracked rib, then she could have much worse.

With a deep breath, Arc pushed open the door to their impromptu interrogation room, and carefully guided the two of them into the hallways.

Jaune almost dropped Sasha at the absolute warzone that was the hallway.

Scorch marks and plasma impacts dotted the walls around them, corpses that no doubt were members of base security littered the hallway, their armor stained red, some of them weren't even in one piece, an arm there, a leg over there, ahead right there.

Alien corpses were few and far between.

"Jesus.." Jaune whispered, his eyes moving from corpse too corpse, the smell surrounding him reminding him too much of his first encounter with the zombie.

Sasha shifting in his arms brought him back to reality, it wasn't just his life relying on him, it was Sasha's too. Jaune took a deep breath and steeled himself, there was no way in hell he was going to let either of them die.

Jaune set down Sasha and crouched beside to one of the most intact bodies and muttered a short 'thank you' to the man before prying the laser rifle from his hands, only being able to grab one extra battery. Jaune had seen the man almost every morning and regularly made it a point to wish him a good morning.

That only to reinforce Jaune's statement, nobody else was going to die on his watch.

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Jaune picked Sasha back up and began walking to the nearest armory, that being the one built into the A company barracks.

The base had been designed to be as prepared for an attack as possible, there were weapons cashed in every room, the larger and more important rooms like the CIC, Lab, and main barracks warranted larger armories. So being closest to A Company made that his most logical course of action.

"Fuck you're heavier than you look Sasha" Jaune whispered to the unconscious woman with a huff, He swore he could hear something skittering around him, the sound always sending a shiver down his spine and pushing him to pick up the pace.

It didn't take Jaune long to find the barrack door, well, it was more like a hole at this point, the aliens must have brought a plasma cutter with them.

Inside he could hear the telltale sounds of combat, flashes of red and green could be seen, yells and screams of either pain or anger.

Jaune set Sasha down against the wall just outside the door, he couldn't fight with Sasha, but he wasn't exactly thrilled with leaving her in the corpse-littered hallway either.

A glance around the hall gave Jaune the perfect idea, even if it did make his stomach churn.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Staff Seargent Nelson was an exceptional soldier, he was more than capable when it came to fighting both humans and aliens alike, and there was even talk around the barrack that he'd taken down a beserker on his own.

It was all bullshit of course, but he'd never tell that to his guys, hell, he needed all the moral he could muster if they were going to make it another five minutes.

The aliens came fast, mind controlling a huge number of his guys before sending in any of their own troops, it was the perfect plan, turn a large number of their forces against them, and use those forces to sabotage strategic positions within the base, paving the way for a vanguard of alien troops to sweep up the mess and delete the only thorn in their side forever.

It was genius, he had to give them that, he and the few guys to resist the mind control made a beeline for the armory, they'd all drilled on an attack like this. He himself had drilled the protocol into his troop's heads.

In the event of an alien attack, all able bodies operatives are too move to the nearest armory and hold there until the attack is repelled.

Or until they all died.

"Sarge!"

Nelson looked up to see one of his newer recruits, Private Karl, as new blood as he was too XCOM was a veteran from Afganistan, a former Marine Corporal with the mouth of a drunken sailor.

"Are you fucking hit, Sir?" Karl yelled from his position behind a counter, a pause in the plasma flying over his head prompted the Private to peak out from over his makeshift cover and nail a sectoid in the head, killing it instantly.

"I'm green!" Nelson replied through clenched teeth, he couldn't afford to lose himself, not when so much was at state.

"Status report!" He yelled coarsely, peaking from cover himself and nailing a thin man in the leg, blowing the limb off but not killing the abomination.

"It's just the three of us, Sir!" Karl yelled, "And only four batteries left before it's back to conventionals!"

"Shit" Nelson whispered to himself, they were in some deep shit and he knew it, the chances of them making it another five minutes were about ten to one. Not to mention the slim chances of them surviving at all.

"Fuck! Sarge look out!" A voice called out, cluing Nelson into the plasma grenade that had landed next to him and his squad.

Nelson looked at Karl, his face grim and eyes empty.

The whole world slowed as Karl watched the Staff Seargent pick up the plasma grenade and vault over his cover, straight into incoming fire.

He watched as his friend and CO was hit by a number of plasma bolts, pushing through the pain and jumping head first into a Mechtoid just in time for the bright green flash to kill him and cripple the alien mech.

"Fuck! Sarge is down!" A female voice yelled. Karl had no doubt it was Corporal Yoko, A veteran member of Nelson's squad and good friend of his, apparently they'd both joined up together and had been friends since training.

"We're getting hammered down here!" Another man yelled into a phone, Specialist Baliey, usually the squad's coms officer, now he was their half-naked phone operator, "Where the hell are our reinforcements!"

"Where the hell did all these assholes come from!" Yoko yelled, peaking from the side of her cover and nailing a thin man in the head, a cloud of poisonous gas taking its place.

If they didn't get some help soon, they'd all be fucked.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Jaune watched from behind an overturned locker as one of the operatives sacrificed himself to injure one of the two Mechtoids with a plasma grenades, there wasn't much he could do to help the man, or the men in the armory for that matter, the moment he fired he'd clue in to his position, and be gunned down in no time.

The blond Specialist too stock of his enemies, he could see about three thin men, all of them clumped up behind an overturned bunk bed, not far from his position, a couple of Sectoids could be seen, both of them hunkered down and giving psionic protection to the two Mechtoids, both of them across the room from each other and pouring fire into the armory.

Five thin men, and a pair of Sectoids and Mechtoids.

"Fuck," Jaune whispered to himself, he only had a laser rifle with one and a half batteries.

Jaune looked around for anything he could use to level the playing field, the only thing he saw was a couple more of his recently deceased comrades.

Searching them, the blond knight found two extra batteries and an undetonated frag grenade.

"That'll work," Jaune whispered too himself, shuffling silently through one of the lockers around him before finding exactly what he was looking for.

A roll of duct tape.

Jaune wasn't great at much, in fact, the only thing he seemed to have any natural talent for was engineering, more often than not if he wasn't training, sleeping, or hanging out with Nick, he was tinkering with Shen.

The knight ductaped his only two fully charged batteries to the frag grenade, the idea was the explosion from the grenade would detonate the batteries, giving him a much-needed damage and radius books.

Or at least that's what he'd hope would happen, he'd never actually been given the means to experiment with his own crazy weapon ideas.

"Please work," Jaune whispered to himself before pulling the pin on the grenade and sending it right in the middle of the tightly packed thin men.

The following explosion shook Jaune to his core, it killed all five thin men, one Sectoid, and injured the Mechtoid.

As well as killing over half of the Alien force, the force of the explosion blew normal household items that didn't immediately disintegrate at speeds that were more than lethal at the remaining aliens, one of the most notable injury being the metal leg off one of the bunk beds being impaled into the Mechtoids chest.

"Holy shit" Jaune whispered to himself, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"That's XCOM, baby!" Someone yelled, probably from the armory, Jaune watched as the last remaining operating utilized the confusion from the explosion to pour laser fire into the last remaining aliens, killing them before they even had a chance to retaliate.

Jaune smiled, Damn, it felt good to kill aliens.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Karl didn't know what happened, one minute, chances of their survival were grim at best, the next more than half the alien forces were incinerated, increasing their chances of survival tenfold.

"That's XCOM, baby!" Karl screamed, peaking from cover with a wide grin, laughing as he and the rest of his ragtag squad rained crimson fire into the remaining aliens, destroying them quickly and giving them all a moment to breath.

"You guys ok?" A young voice yelled from across the room, behind what used to be the alien line.

"We're good!" Karl yelled back, standing up from his cover with the rest of the squad, "How many you brought with you?"

"It's just me," Jaune said, standing up from his own cover and walking toward the group, causing Karl to raise his eyebrow in confusion.

"Just you? You gotta be fucking with me." Karl said with a laugh.

"Nope, it's just me, My friend out in the hallway is down for the count at the moment," Jaune responded, reaching his hand out to Karl and shaking it, "Specialist Jaune Arc,"

"Arc? Didn't you just graduate?" Karl asked.

"Yep, a couple days ago to be exact," Jaune said with a slight puff of his chest.

"Well Jaune, I'm Private Jason Karl," Karl stated with a smile.

"That's our resident weeb, Corporal Akane Yoko," Karl said, pointing at the only woman in the group, earning the Private a smack to the back of the head, The woman's hair was black, and ran down to her shoulders, eyes a piercing and intense blue.

"Over there is Specialist Tim Bailey," Karl continued pointing at one of the Operatives, the short, brown-haired man too busy speaking into a phone to notice they were talking about him.

"And we're what's left of A Company," Karl said with a bittersweet smile.

"Well mind if my friend and I join?" Jaune asked simply

"We'll take as many hands as we can get," Karl said, patting Jaune on the shoulder, "Let's go grab your friend and find out what the fuck to do now."

Jaune nodded his head, I'd be nice to have someone watching his back for once, and he didn't know how much longer he could carry Sasha and fight before he collapsed from exhaustion.

A panicked scream made Jaune spin around at an almost inhuman speed, the sound clearly having come from the hallway he had left Sasha.

Alone and covered in the blood and bodies of her comrades.

A/N

Jaune, as usual, is way too fucking nice for his own good, will him saving Sasha make her see the error in her ways? Or will she continue being an insufferable bitch? Only I know! hahaha!

Leave a review on your thoughts, it makes me want to write and update more often!


	7. Chapter 7

A New Kind of Warfare

Chapter 7

Ruby laid in her bunk, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

How long had it been now, since Jaune disappeared? Something like six months?

She could feel her memories fading, simple things like were his eyes a deep ocean blue or a crystal sky blue? Was his hair more golden or sandy blond?

It made Ruby's stomach churn with guilt, he'd been the first person to show her any real kindness in her life barring her family, and it hurt to think she was forgetting his so easily.

When she needed someone to talk about the new issue of X-ray and Vav comic, he was there.

When she realized her 'friends' from patch were only using her to get out of trouble or cheat off her, he was there.

When she needed to run to Vale proper to buy ammo and parts for her baby, he'd been there, they'd sometimes even make a day out of it and just hang out in Vale all day.

She missed those days.

Days she could relax and unwind with her best friend, block out all the stress and work involved with being a huntress-in-training at one of the most prestigious academies. Not that she didn't love the huntress life, it was everything she wanted, but sometimes she just wanted to spend time with someone that was as dorky as she was.

"Ruby, have you studied for Ooblecks test tomorrow?" Weiss asked curly from her dest, a sprawl of papers surrounding her.

"Yes?" Ruby replied.

"You're a terrible liar," Weiss said blankly

"Okay, Okay, I'm sorry," Ruby spoke slowly, her voice a stark contrast from her normally fast paced and happy attitude, "I'm just not really feeling up to it right now."

"This isn't about that dolt Arc is it?" Weiss said with a twinge of annoyance in her voice.

"What if it is?" Ruby said defensively, sitting up from her bed, fixing Weiss with a guarded look.

"Then I'd tell you to be happy he's not here dragging you down with him." Weiss state with an air of superiority floating heavily around her.

"Why do you hate him, Weiss," Ruby said with an unusual anger to her voice, "Why do you treat him like he wasn't one of us? Like he wasn't worthy of being your friend?"

"Because he's not." Weiss responded simply, "If he can't fight for himself, then he doesn't belong here, the only thing he's good at is being a nuisance."

Ruby's heart pounded out of her chest, how could her partner be so cruel to Jaune, who'd done nothing but show everyone he meets kindness.

"I'm going to the training room," Ruby said, a clear twinge of uncharacteristic anger in her voice as she retrieved Crescent Rose, and slammed the door as she left, leaving Weiss alone with her work.

'What do you see in that dunce.'

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Crescent Rose arched through the air, it's blade glinting under the dull lighting of the training room as it made brutal contact with one of the many training dummies surrounding her, her anger disappeared as she as she began her brutal dance.

The machines around her all lunged at her in sync, prompting her to fire Crescent Rose at her feet and launch herself up and away from the bots.

With a midair flourish, Ruby brought her baby down and spun it around her, taking out the remaining training bots, and leaving her alone with her thoughts yet again.

As of late, the rose reaper was losing her temper any time Weiss said anything about Jaune, and for good reason too. It seemed that all the winter-themed woman could talk about was how glad she was he was gone.

It hurt, it served as a reminder that her best friend was gone forever, and there was nothing she could do about it, no amount of training could bring him back and she knew it.

But that didn't stop her from pushing herself, sometimes to the extremes.

'Impressive'

Ruby jumped at the sudden intrusion, her head spinning around the room, searching for who had spoken.

'We are not within you're... plane of existence' The strange voice spoke, now that Ruby focused on it more, it sounded a lot more like a bunch of distinctly feminine voices all mixed together.

"What's going on," Ruby asked out loud, her voice low with confusion.

'You... Worry for your friend... The one you call Jaune..?' The voices asked quietly, the more Ruby listened to the voice the more it seemed like they were voices in her head, and not spoken outright. 'We can... Help you...'

"Youcanhelp?WhereisheIhavetotelltheothersIknewhewouldn'trunaway!" Ruby spoke quickly with eyes widened in shock and excitement, lips moving faster than the eye can see.

'He is... Not the same person... Anymore...' The voices echoed, 'He still fights for humanity... However... it is against a far more... Dire enemy...'

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ruby questioned in confusion, "I just want my best friend back, take me to him!"

'We must warn you... The humanity the Arc fights for... Is no longer your own...' The voices spoke simply.

"I don't care!" Ruby yelled before her voice became no more than a whisper, tears evident on her cheeks, "Please, I just want Jaune back."

'Very well young one...' The voice spoke.

Ruby listened as the voices in her head began to grow louder, drowning her own thoughts out as they continued to grow, causing the red reaper to fall to her knees in pain, her hands held tightly over her head in pain.

She could feel something in her head, it was unlike anything she'd felt in her entire life, long pulses of pain rang through her, every twitch of her muscles hurt, every breath burned, and every thought felt like it was being seen by everyone.

Ruby screamed in pain as her arm involuntarily lifted, a strange purple energy whisping between her fingers and into her palm, forming into a large ball of strange energy.

The red reaper watched as the ball of purple lazily floated away from her to the middle of the room, before expanding into a large, almost vortex of purple, the pain in her head slowly disappearing as the ball moved further away from her.

'Walk through... The Arc awaits...' the voices echoed

"He's.. on the other side of the weird floaty purple thingy?" Ruby asked nervously, her mind still reeling from the sudden appearance and then disappearance of the worst headache she's ever felt.

'Yes...' The voices responded, 'Do not wast this... Gift... We do not extend it without reason...'

Ruby nodded in understanding before steadying herself not a foot from the vortex. With a deep breath and a check of her baby, the red reaper took the step that would change her life.

"I'm coming Jaune."

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

Jaune and his newfound squad turned the corner into the hallway in a flash, their eyes hard and rifles leveled to dispatch any aliens that may have survived as a rearguard.

However what they found was strange, to say the least.

The first thing Jaune noticed was that the hallway was now occupied by two people, one of which is the still unconscious Sasha, and the other being, well he had no idea who.

She unconscious, that much was clear from the laying face first on the hard metal floor, however, that wasn't what struck Jaune as strange.

From where he was standing, the blond knight could only make out a long red cape, running down to about halfway down the woman's calf, short charcoal black hair with red tips, and how, of course, the ginormous scythe laying next to her.

Wait what?

"HOLY SHIT THAT'S A BIG SCYTHE!" Yoko exclaimed, loud enough to make the squad cringe and to clue in any aliens on their position.

"Weird friend Specialist," Karl stated with a chuckle, "Can't say I'd have left her in the middle of the hallway, but hey, nobody's perfect right?"

"She's not my friend," Jaune spoke in confusion, before whispering to himself "But she seems damn familiar."

"Well if she isn't you're friend who the fuck is?" The private asked, arms wide to gesture to the corpses surrounding them.

"Right here," Jaune said, slinging his rifle and pulling the corpse off of Sasha's lap, checking the woman injuries and making sure she was still stable "I hid her here while I saved yall's asses."

"Well if that's your friend," Karl said, before poking the red-themed woman's side with his boot "Who the fuckadoodaly do is this?"

Before Jaune could reply, the red woman flew into action, the scythe's blade resting on Karl's neck before he could react.

Everyone else brought up their rifles just as fast, their sights resting on the scythe-wielding woman's head just as they'd been trained too.

"Drop the fucking scythe lady!" Karl yelled, his voice laced with fear, his hands shooting up in a non-threatening way.

"Woahh there, Ma'am, let's all just calm down shall we?" Jaune stated calmly, taking a step closer to her "There's no need for any violence."

The woman's eyes widened as they settled on Jaune, her lips quivering as tears started to pour down her face.

"Careful Specialist, this could be some new brand of infiltrator." Yoko cautioned, finger twitching against the trigger of her rifle.

"Relax Yoko," Jaune answered before turning back to the woman, "What's your name, Ma'am?"

"Don't you remember Jaune?" Ruby sobbed, dropping the scythe and falling to her knees, prompting Karl to scramble to his side and bring up his own rifle, the only reason he didn't immediately fire was because Jaune was in his was.

"How do you know his name?" Bailey accused, shaking his rifle in his hand, finger tense on the trigger, anticipation a fight.

"It's me, Ruby," The red woman cried, her hands at her side, "Why don't you remember, and why are all these people dead!"

Jaune's body moving on autopilot as he moved to her side and hugged her, only pulling back to look into her silver eyes shimmering with tears.

The same eyes he saw after his gene operation.

The same eyes he saw when the aliens tried mind controlling him.

The same eyes from his past, the ones he could feel, but hurt when he tried to remember.

The same silver eyes from his past.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

A/N

Omake below :)

Ooooh, things are starting to get a little more complicated!

How will team (R)WBY and (J)NPR react to the disappearance of their leaders? Will Weiss finally feel shitty about how much of a bitch she's been? Will Jaune remember or is his past locked away forever? What are the Etheral's agenda? Stay tuned for the next episode of 'Jaune and Co. kill aliens'!

If anyone else wants to submit an Omake, or you want me to write my own, just ask! m PMs are always open.

Thanks to everyone that's left me a review for this story, ya'll have been so awesome! Keep feeding my ego, and pointing out any mistakes that bother you, thanks!

-= Omake submitted by .1 =-

Jaune stumbles back deeper into the room, Sasha's now glowing purple eyes shaking the blond knight to his core.

"I'll kill you!" Sasha screamed as she lunges toward's Jaune, Her blade poised for his heart.

Jaune's eyes flashed with fear, his panic being enough for Sasha to close in with her stab. Only for her blade to skirt off of some sort of invisible shield.

"What?" Sasha exclaimed, staggering back in a combination of surprise and confusion.

Taking advantage of the woman's confusion, Jaune charged her, slamming his shoulder into her stomach and bringing her to the ground, effectively stunning her enough for him to grab her by the wrists.

"Ahhh! Let me GO!" Sasha screamed, only causing Jaune to tighten his grip, causing the woman to lose her grip on the blade and drop it.

With little extra effort, Jaune lifted Sasha off the ground, twisted her arms around her back, and pushed her against the wall, effectively pinning her.

Sasha grunted as she struggled to escape, but to no avail.

"Calm down Sasha!" Jaune yelled as she tried to struggle from his grip, "There in your head, You need to fight it!"

"They're not in my head you dumbass!" Sasha yelled, her eyes fading from bright purple to their original bright green.

"The what the hell are you trying to stab me for!" Jaune yelled back, confusion evident on his face, still holding Sasha against the wall.

"Because you've gotten everything I've worked my entire life to get in a month!" Sasha yelled, her eyes shimmering as she stopped struggling against Jaune. "I've worked my ass off my entire life to get where I am, and some punk ass kid gets it all handed to him on a silver platter! What the hell else am I suppose to do!"

Jaune's eyes softened as he began to understand, letting go of Sasha, allowing the woman to turn around and slid to the ground.

"I.. I'm sorry, I didn't realize," Jaune spoke tentatively, his voice soft and relaxing to Sasha.

"I'm sorry I tried to stab you.." Sasha murmured, her voice low as she grumbled her apology.

"It's okay, I understand," Jaune responded, his voice as smooth as silk.

Sasha's eyes began to water, even more, eventually sending streams of tears down her face, staring at Jaune as her guilt got the better of her and she grabbed the blond boy by the shirt, burying her face into his chest as she sobbed uncontrollably.

"Shh, It's okay," Jaune whispered cooly into her ear, gently caressing her hair as she cried, "You're okay, You're not alone."

Sasha continued crying, her arms tightly around Jaune as he gently ran his hand through her hair and held her, lightly rocking back and forth in an attempt to calm her down.

Before long, Sasha was silently sobbing into the blond boy's chest, her shoulders lightly shaking as he layed her down in his lap, his hand still running through her hair as she slowly slipped from the waking world.

"Goodnight," Jaune whispered silently before he lightly wiped a tear from her cheek, "You will never be alone in the world again, I promise."


	8. Chapter 8

A New Kind of Warfare

Chapter 8

Sasha awoke with a start, her muscles ached and her head pounded with pain.

She couldn't quite remember what had brought her to the infirmary, was it a training exercise gone too far? Maybe she's gotten in a fight with some cocky rookie deserving a beatdown?

Looking around the room, Sasha searched for any clues as to why she was in the infirmary, especially since she was in such shit condition.

The blond woman only got so far before her eyes fell on one Specialist Jaune Arc. From what she could see, he was fast asleep, arms crossed and body slumped into the small visitor's couch to her right.

He looked like he'd been to hell and back, cuts and bruises all over his arms and face, and a knee brace over his left leg showed that either she and Jaune had gotten into a major fight, or he'd been crushed underfoot by a rouge Mechtoid.

"He saved your life you know." A voice said, causing Sasha to jump and finally notice the only other presence in the room, a short black haired girl with a flowing red cape, Sasha's frown deepened.

"Who the fuck are you?" The Russian spoke loudly, her voice laced with annoyance.

"Ruby Rose, I'm" The red woman paused, her face adopting a thoughtful look before continuing, "I'm a friend, of Jaune's."

"Make sense, the weak do seem to befriend each other," Sasha said with a snort, her eyes staring intensely at the small red themed woman.

"Hey! I'm not weak!" The woman pouted, her eyes adopting a sort of puppy-eyed look, "Jaune isn't weak either, he could have left you to die."

Sasha shot the red reaper a glare before speaking, angrily gesturing at Jaune, "Jaune couldn't save himself from a paper bag, let alone me, look at him, he looks like he lost a spar with a box of nails!"

"You're the one who gave him a good number of those injuries you know," The black and red haired girl said accusingly, "From what I've heard you're just as bad as Cardin when it comes to bullying Jaune!"

"Who the fuck is- Ya know what ya little twerp, I don't wanna hear shit from some little girl who can't even protect herself, it's people like you that fuck XCOM over, complaining about death rates and blaming us for shit we can't control!" Morozov yelled, her eyes burning with rage as she jabbed her finger in the young girl's direction.

"Shut the hell up Morozov"

Sasha whipped her head around and stared at the now conscious Jaune, her face flashing with anger at being so rudely interrupted from her rant, especially by the blond Arc.

"What the fuck would you know?" Sasha spat angrily

"I know I saved your ass, even after you tried to kill me," Jaune replied deadpan.

"Wha- What the fuck are you talking about, like I'd believe some shit like that!" The blond woman yelled, her face bright red with anger.

"Here's the report," Jaune stated, picking up a folder off the coffee table in front of him and tossing it onto Sasha's lap before turning to the door "Read it before you embarrass yourself any more than you already have."

Sasha could only stare at Jaune with wide eyes, her mind working to understand how the blond Arc's attitude could take such a 180 from stuttering mess to 'Shut the hell up'.

"Come on Ruby, it's time you fill me in," Jaune announced, walking out the door, causing the red woman to hop off her chair, stick her tongue out at Sasha, and trail the blond out the door, leaving the blond Russian alone with her thoughts, and an AAR* to read.

-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-

After weaving their way through the relatively intact hallways with little difficulty, but Jaune and Ruby came to their destination.

The blond Arc opened the door and was faced with the familiar single table and a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

A smirk came to the blond's face as he thought about the first time Nick dragged him here for dinner, that dinner ended up being one of his fondest memories withing XCOM, a time spent not worrying about aliens or PT, instead, the night consisted of comics and jovial laughter.

"Just have a seat at the table Ruby," Jaune stated, gesturing to the table before turning his attention to the large freezer in the corner, "Are you hungry?"

"Yea, I haven't eaten all day," Ruby replied with a smile, she'd missed Jaune more than she'd thought, just seeing him alive was enough to make her face split into a grin.

"Alright, well we've only got Chauffeurs Carved Turkey, end of the month and all," Jaune stated with a chuckle, preparing the two frozen meals with practiced ease. "So you wanna explain how you know me?"

"O- Oh yea, I forgot you don't remember," Ruby said, a hint of disappointment clear in her voice.

"I wouldn't say I forgot everything per say," Jaune said, his lips set in a thin line, "It's hard to explain, I can feel emotions and memories, it's just like their being blocked."

"Blocked?" the red reaper asked, "Like a password on a scroll or something?"

"Yea, something like that" The blond breathed, a trio of high pitched beeps signaling that their food was cooked.

"Well can you remember?" Ruby asked curiously as Jaune lat down In front of her and slid a steaming tray of food in front of her.

"It's all really fuzzy, I can remember strange black and white creatures," Jaune said with a wince.

"Oh! That's the Grimm." The cloaked woman remarked. "And?"

"I can remember being ashamed." He said eyes clamped shut as he tried to dig deeper, to no avail.

"We can stop if you need to," Ruby said, her voice laced with worry at her friend's pain

"No, I'm fine." Jaune spoke quickly before continuing "The last thing I can remember clearly is a set of green eyes."

"That's probably Pyrrha!" Ruby proclaimed with a smile, "She was your partner at Beacon."

"Beacon?" The Arc questioned.

"Yea, you were enrolled as a student at one of the most prestigious huntsman academies in all the world!" Ruby said, face full of excitement as she explained Beacon, the Huntsman, and Grimm to her best friend turned XCOM operative.

The conversation carried on for a couple hours, Jaune explained XCOM and Earth, while Ruby explained Remnant and Huntsman. The both of them pausing to ask the other questions whenever they felt lost.

"I think that's just about it." Ruby sighed, her throat was sore and her arms hurt from her excited gesturing, but it was all worth it to have her best friend back.

"Okay so, Grimm equal evil. Huntsman kill Grimm. We were Hunstman-in-training. I led a team, Ren, Nora, and a partner named Pyrrha. You're the leader of our sister team, Weiss, Yang, and Blake. We lived in Vale and went to Beacon." Jaune listed off what he's gathered from their conversation, "That all sound right?"

"Yup~ " Ruby said with a smile.

"And you said this was Earth, and you're a solder with an army who hunt aliens?" Ruby asked with a look of disbelief.

"Technically I'm not a solder since XCOM isn't tethered to any one country, I'm more like an employee with a super high-tech PMC, But we just call ourselves operatives," Jaune explained, picking at his newly implemented cybernetic implant attached to his arm, he was still getting used to having metal bits surgically attached to his body.

"What is that on your arm?" Ruby questioned curiously, bending over the table to try and get a closer look.

"Oh, Their cybernetic implants," Jaune spoke, shrugging his shoulders and pulling up his sleeve, "I know it's weird but they supposed to increase my combat effectiveness by a ton."

"How does that work?" the red themed reaper inquired.

"I'm not too sure myself, all I know for sure is that when I got out, my whole body fucking hurt." the blond responded with a small laugh, causing the young woman in front of him to gasp and point at him, a horrified expression on her face.

"SWEAR JAR!"

*After Action Report

A/N

Ya boy's been sick as FUCK!

Seriously though, this chapter was a pain in my ass to get out, sorry for the abnormally short chapter, and the lateness.

I'm writing a new 1st POV standalone RWBY story and It's killing my sleep schedule, paring that with work and sickness, I haven't had much time to churn out a new chapter. Anywho I should be back on schedule now, so a normal length chapter should be out next Monday.

If you enjoyed leave a review, please, it's the only love I get in life.


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